Gypsy (16 page)

He could easily have snapped at her, but he just looked saddened. ‘You are too young to understand,’ he said with a sigh.

‘You’d be surprised what I understand,’ she retorted, thinking of her mother’s dying confession. ‘I know passion makes people behave recklessly.’

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘And what, oh Wise One, should I do if I love a woman who is married to a man who makes her utterly miserable?’

Beth was surprised and a little touched by his honesty. ‘So why did she marry him?’ she asked.

‘She was pushed into it by her family,’ he replied.

Beth thought about that for a moment. ‘Then why doesn’t she just leave him?’

‘You surprise me,’ hesaid with a touch of sarcasm. ‘Ialways thought girls of your class believed in the sanctity of marriage.’

Beth bristled at the mention of her class, and his assumption that a girl like her couldn’t have an open mind. ‘As I see it, there is no sanctity in a marriage of convenience.’

‘You sound bitter,’ he said, looking at her intently. ‘If you weren’t so young I’d think you were speaking from experience. But what you suggest is impossible anyway; her husband has her watched.’

‘By a servant?’ Beth asked. She remembered the woman had mentioned someone called Aggie.

He nodded.

For reasons she didn’t understand, Beth felt drawn into his problems and wanted to help him. ‘She’ll be easily distracted once we get to New York. Maybe your lady should make plans for then?’

‘And what kind of plan would a devious little minx like you devise?’ he said, a faint smile tweaking his lips.

Beth could well understand why the woman Clarissa was taking such risks for him. It wasn’t just his face that was attractive, he had an easy manner too. ‘I think she would need help from another woman,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Her servant wouldn’t think to watch her so closely if she was with a friend.’

‘I’ll bear that idea in mind,’ he said, this time giving her a beaming smile. ‘Shame you aren’t in first class too, it could be you!’

Beth laughed lightly. ‘I wish I was in first class. I don’t suppose so many people are seasick there. That was why I came up here, to get away from it. But I must go now, I’m frozen.’

‘And can I rely on you not to speak of this to anyone?’ he asked, raising one eyebrow questioningly.

‘Discretion is my middle name,’ she giggled.

‘Then, Miss Discretion, I hope we run into one another again,’ he said with a little bow. ‘And you must run along now before you freeze to death.’

The rest of the voyage passed slowly and uneventfully, without Beth catching sight of the lovers again. As sickness had descended on so many of the steerage passengers there were no more nights of dancing, music and revelry, and Beth filled her days nursing, cleaning and minding the children of those too ill to take care of their own.

There were many she’d helped who claimed she was an angel, but to Beth there was nothing extraordinary in taking care of others; she was used to it. Besides, the light was too bad to read, it was too cold to go up on deck for more than ten minutes at a time, and the people she liked most, Maria and Bridie in particular, were too poorly for fun or conversation.

Sam would call for her to go up on deck with him several times during the day, and Jack Child invariably turned up too. Beth assumed it was because he had become friends with Sam, but her brother was quick to point out that she was the attraction.

Beth didn’t really believe this because she’d become aware that everyone, male and female, admired Sam. He was funny, kind-hearted, daring and often outspoken.

Yet whatever Jack’s reason for wanting to spend time with them, Beth was always pleased to see him. He was entertaining, quick-witted and worldly. He made her feel slightly giddy, and he always understood her little jokes and came back with sharp retorts that made her giggle. She often wished that it wasn’t so cold on deck so they could stay up there longer; as it was, she often prolonged their meetings until she was almost a block of ice. On the way back down the companionway they lingered chatting until one of the crew or stewards told them off for blocking the way.

Sam’s activities were not curtailed by mere rules. He managed to flout them all by sheer charm, his smart appearance and his good manners. He’d somehow managed to get to know a young lady called Annabel in second class, and spent part of each day with her and her family in various places around the ship, even to the extent of eating with them and avoiding the disgusting daily meal of stew given to the steerage passengers.

Beth might have been jealous if he hadn’t smuggled her back cake and fruit. Jack was awestruck by Sam’s cool-headed nerve and by his bearing which enabled him to get away with it.

‘If I walked through one of those grids they’d know straight off where I came from,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘I’d do better to nick a steward’s jacket and carry a tray to get in there. But the minute I opened me mouth the game would be up.’

‘They say there’s no class distinction in America,’ Beth pointed out. ‘All you need to better yourself is the ability to work hard.’

Beth hadn’t really been aware of class distinction until her mother died. Before that, almost everyone she came into contact with had been the middling sort, respectable and industrious, just like her family. She was of course aware of the very poor; she saw them daily begging in the streets. But the gentry were so far removed from her, with their big houses, servants and fancy carriages, that they never touched her life.

Going to work and later to live in Falkner Square had changed all that. Then she was a servant, observing the gentry from close quarters, and she became aware of the huge, unbridgeable gulf between her and them. The Langworthys had never made her feel inferior, but she had been made to feel so on this voyage just because they couldn’t afford a higher fare.

At night as she lay in her bed, trying to blank out the groans of the sick around her and the ever-present smell of vomit, she would think about the promised classless society in America. Clearly there had to be some kind of hierarchy there too, but if it was based on wealth rather than birth or education, maybe if she and Sam worked hard they could end up with the kind of status the Langworthys held.

Chapter Eleven

‘Land’s been sighted!

At the excited yell from one of her fellow steerage passengers, Beth rushed to get her coat and joined the throng of other people pushing and shoving to get up on deck. It was early afternoon, eight days since they left Liverpool, and it seemed odd that even those who had spent the entire voyage prostrate with seasickness had suddenly found the strength to get up.

Rain was coming down heavily, the visibility very poor, and all Beth could see ahead was a slightly darker grey line on the horizon, yet that didn’t send anyone back to the warmth below decks. All around her she could hear people asking one another how long it would be until they landed, and then discussing what they’d do first once they’d been through immigration.

After having the entire deck to herself for most of the voyage, it felt strange to be jostled by so many people. Sam wasn’t there — she assumed he was with Annabel — and she couldn’t see Jack either. To try to avoid the crush, and to find a spot from where she might get her first glimpse of land, she elbowed her way through the throng of people, right up to the railings that separated them from first class.

There, to her surprise, just the other side of the railing, was Clarissa, huddled under an umbrella with a gentleman.

Beth might have only had a brief glimpse of her in the dark, but she knew without any doubt it was Clarissa, even before she heard her speak. She was wearing a long, light brown fur coat and matching hat, a few tendrils of blonde hair fluttering in the breeze around her face.

Beth kept looking straight ahead, but her eyes were swivelling sideways to study the woman. She was what most people would call a classical beauty: an oval face, porcelain-like complexion, a perfect straight nose and high cheekbones. Beth couldn’t see her eyes straight on, but she assumed they’d be blue. Yet her looks were not as interesting as the way she was with her companion. He held the umbrella above them with one hand, but she was holding his other arm almost possessively and looking right up into his eyes each time he spoke.

Beth assumed he must be yet another admirer, because he didn’t fit the image of an old, stout man she had created in her mind for this woman’s husband. He was around forty and tall, with a little goatee beard and neat moustache, as straight-backed and slender as a guardsman in a stylish dark blue coat with an astrakhan collar. Unusually, he wasn’t wearing a hat, and he had a good head of wavy brown hair. While not rakishly handsome like the other man Beth had seen, he had a pleasant, good-natured face, and he was laughing at something Clarissa was saying to him.

‘I’m afraid I may lose the brolly soon,’ Beth heard him say as a gust of wind almost turned it inside out and he had to struggle to bring it under control.

‘I did say, my darling, that it was a mistake to bring it out here,’ Clarissa replied, smiling fondly at him. ‘Umbrellas don’t belong on ships, only in cities.’

‘And let my lovely wife get wet?’ he exclaimed jovially.

Beth was so surprised to discover this was the cuckolded husband that she almost jerked her head round towards the couple, but she controlled herself just in time and kept her eyes fixed firmly on the horizon.

‘I did suggest it would be wiser to watch for land from the saloon,’ she heard Clarissa retort.

‘Maybe wiser, but there’s a more exciting atmosphere out here,’ her husband replied, waving one hand at the steerage passengers. ‘Look at them all, clamouring for their first sight of America.’

Beth knew she ought to feel disgusted that this woman thought so little of marital fidelity. Clearly her husband wasn’t an ogre, and she’d been playing fast and loose with the handsome younger man’s feelings. Yet what she felt was more like disappointment, and sadness that the other man was going to be badly hurt.

A few minutes later, the mist and rain lifted just enough for land to be dimly sighted, and this took Beth’s mind off Clarissa and her lover.

The passengers learned to their frustration that they wouldn’t set foot in New York that evening, for the ship had to lie at anchor in the Hudson River until an immigration official came aboard. It was said that he had to check there was no disease on board, and then, providing all was well, they would be allocated a berth in the New York docks the following morning.

The calmer waters and the delight at being so close to their destination cured seasickness instantly and everyone wanted their last night to be one to remember. Even Miss Giles, who had watched the women in her care like a hawk, relaxed her vigilance.

When the customary cauldron of stew was brought down for the evening meal, there was a near riot in the rush to be served. Some of the passengers had eaten nothing but a few spoonfuls of thin gruel and dry bread since Liverpool, and now they were ravenously hungry.

Beth could hardly believe her eyes as they fell on the greyish-brown, greasy liquid with a few pieces of vegetables and more lumps of gristle than meat floating in it. She had forced herself to eat some of the nauseating concoction each night, because there was nothing else on offer, but they all looked as if they were positively enjoying it.

Once the meal was over, out came the fiddle, the spoons and the mouth organs and the singing, dancing and drinking began in earnest. Jack had a bottle of whisky and offered it to Beth. She took a swig and winced as it burned her throat, but, determined to be daring, she took another and found it went down more easily.

Maybe it was only the whisky, but that evening Beth felt like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. The sheer number of young men clamouring to dance with her proved that she was attractive; she felt excited and optimistic about the adventure awaiting her in the morning. While she knew she was going to miss Molly dreadfully in the weeks ahead, she suddenly realized she wasn’t sorry she’d left England.

‘Get your fiddle and play, Beth,’ Sam urged her.

She tried to refuse because she’d never played in public before, and she was afraid she wasn’t as good as the old man. But Sam wouldn’t leave it, and soon all the other people around them were clamouring for her to play too.

Beth had always played the fiddle by ear, even though she read music for the piano, and when she came back with her instrument she listened to a few bars of the tune the old man was playing, and once she thought she’d got it, she joined in with him.

It was far faster than she was used to, yet it felt right, the way the fiddle was intended to be played. Her fingers moved like quicksilver on the strings and her bow was making them sing. She moved her whole body in rhythm, closing her eyes and completely immersing herself in the music.

She sensed rather than saw her audience’s appreciation: the foot-tapping grew louder, and whoops of joy came from those dancing. All at once she knew this was what she was made for, to play soaring, happy music that lifted her and all those around her to a better place. She forgot she was on a ship surrounded by grubby, pale-faced people and felt as if she were dancing barefoot across a buttercup-strewn meadow in bright sunshine.

When the tune ended and she opened her eyes again, she saw she had taken everyone to that place too. Their eyes were shining, they were smiling broadly, and sweat poured from their faces.

‘Ah, you’re a little gypsy!’ a man in the crowd shouted out. ‘Sure and wasn’t that the best fiddling outside of Dublin!’

Beth played a few more times before putting her fiddle down and joining in the dancing. It was even more frantic than on their first night, the music louder, and as she was swirled around in a frantic polka, she laughed with sheer joy.

Sam passed her by again and again, each time with a different girl in his arms, and his wide, approving grin at the sight of her enjoying herself made her feel even more elated. It occurred to her that he’d probably harboured doubts that she could ever break out of her prissy ways, and maybe he’d even feared she would be a liability.